Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

"We were extremely thorough with him," said Berquist. "Under the

  circumstances, we were able to bring in the Central Intelligence Agency and

  those people were aggressive. What are you looking for?'

  "I'm not sure. Someone who's not around anymore, perhaps. A puppet."

  . I won't try to follow that."

  "I may need your direct intervention in one area, however.

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  You said before that the Pentagon frequently balks at being questioned by

  White House personnel."

  "It goes with the uniforms; they're not worn over here. I expect you're

  referring to the Nuclear Contingency Committees. I saw them on your list."

  "I am."

  "They're touchy. Rightfully so, I'd say."

  "I have to talk to every member of those three teams; that's fifteen senior

  officers. Can you get word to the chairman that you expect them all to

  cooperate with Mr. Cross? Not in the area of maximum restricted

  information, but in terms of-progress evaluation."

  "One of those phrases again."

  "It says it, Mr. President. It would help if you could work Matthias irL"

  "All right," said Berquist slowly. "III lay it on the great man. It's not

  in character, but he can hardly deny it. I'll have my military aide convey

  the word: the Secretary of State wants those committees to provide an

  in-depth progress report for the Oval Office. A simple memorandum ordering

  cooperation within the limits of maximum classification should do it ...

  They'll say there's a crossover, of course. You can't have one without

  violating the other."

  "Then tell them to err on the side of classification. The final report's

  for your eyes only, anyway."

  "Anything else?"

  "The psychiatric file on Matthias. Bradford was to have gotten it for me."

  "I'm going to Camp David tomorrow. III detour to Poole's Island and bring

  it back with me."

  "One thing more. This Mrs. Howell; outside of calling in the Secret Service

  if anyone approaches her about me, what has she been told to say? About me,

  my functions?"

  "Only that you're on a special assignment for the President."

  "Can you change it?"

  "To what?"

  "Routine assignment. Researching old agendas so White House files can be

  completed on various matters."

  "We have people doing that. It's basically political-bow is this position

  defended, or why did that senator buck us and how do we stop him from doing

  it again."

  512 ROBERT LuDLum

  'Put me in with the crowd."

  "You're in it. Good luck ... but then you'll need a great deal more than

  luck. This world needs more than luck. Sometimes I think we need a miracle

  to last another week. . . . Keep me informed; my orders are that whenever

  Mr. Cross calls, I'm to be interrupted."

  Bradford's secretary, one Elizabeth Andrews, was at home, the sensational

  death of her superior having had its emotional impact. A number of newspaper

  people bad telephoned her, and she had relayed the events of yesterday

  morning sadly but calmly, until a gossip-oriented reporter, noting

  Bradford's marital track record, hinted at a sexual entanglement.

  "You sick bitch," Elizabeth had said, slamming down the phone.

  Havelock's call came twenty minutes later, and Elizabeth Andrews was not

  inclined to tell the tale again. He suggested she call him back at the

  White House when she felt better, the ploy worked. The phone in the study

  in Fairfax rang six minutes after Michael had bung up.

  Tm sorry, Mr. Cross. les been a very trying time and some very trying

  reporters."

  "m be as brief as possible."

  She recounted the morning's events, beginning with Bradford's sudden and

  unexpected emergence from his offlee shortly after she had arrived.

  "He looked dreadful. He~d obviously been up all night and was exhausted,

  but there was something else. A kind of manic energy; he was excited about

  something. Ive seen him like that lots of times, of course, but somehow

  yesterday it was different. He spoke louder than he usually did."

  Mat could have been the exhaustion," said Havelock. "It often works that

  way. A person compensates because be feels weak.'

  Perhaps, but I don't think so, not with him, not yesterday morning. I know

  it sounds ghastly, but I think he'd made up his mind . . . that's a

  horrible thing to say, but I believe it. it was as though he were

  exhilarated, actually looking forward to the moment when it was going to

  happen. Ies ghoulish, but he left the office shortly before ten, said he

  was going out for a few minutes, and I have this terrible picture

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  of him out on the street, looking up at the windowand

  thinking to himself, Yes, this is it."

  "Could there be another explanation? Could he have been going to see

  someone?"

  "No, I don't think so. I asked him if he'd be in another office in case a

  call came for him and he said no, he was going out for some air."

  "He never mentioned why he'd been there all night?"

  "Only that he'd been working on a project that he'd fallen behind on. He'd

  been doing a fair amount of traveling recently~"

  "Did you set up the transportation arrangements for him?'" interrupted

  Havelock.

  "No, he usually did that himself. As you probably know~

  --be often . . . took someone with him. He was divorced, several times

  actually. He was a very private person, Mr. Cross. And so very unhappy."

  "Why do you say that?"

  Ms. Andrews paused, then spoke firmly. "Emory Bradford was a brilliant man,

  and they didn't pay attention to him. He was once very influential in this

  city until be told the truthas he saw the truth-and as soon as the applause

  died down, they all ran away from him."

  "You've been with him a long time."

  "A long time. I saw it all happen."

  "Could you give me examples of this running away from him?"

  "Sure. To begin with, he was consistently overlooked when his experience,

  his expertise could have been of value. Then he'd frequently write position

  papers, correcting powerful men and women-senators, congressmen,

  secretaries of this and that-who had made stupid mistakes in interviews and

  press conferences, but if one out of ten ever responded or thanked him, I

  never knew about it, and I would have. He'd monitor the early-morning

  television programs, where the worst gaffes are made-just as be was doing

  yesterday, right up to the end-and dictate what be called clariflcations.

  They were always gentle, even kind, never offensive, and, sure enough,

  'clarifications' were usually issued, but never any thanks."

  "He was watching television yesterday morning?"

  "For a while . . .- before it happened. At least, the set was

  514 ROBEIRT LUDLUM

  rolled out to the front of his desk. He moved it back ... before it

  happened. Right up until th~ end he couldn't break the babit. He wanted

  people to be better than they are; he wanted the government to be better."

  "Were there any notes on his desk that could have told you whom he was

  watching?"

  "No, nothing. It was like h
is final gesture, leaving this world tidler than

  he'd found it. I've never seen his desk so neat, so clean."

  "I'm sure you haven't."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Nothing. I was agreeing with you ... I know you were at lunch, but were

  there any people in the vicinity of his office door who might have seen

  someone go in or out?"

  "Me police covered that, Mr. Cross. There are always people milling around;

  we all have different lunch breaks, depending on what's happening in what

  time zone, but no one saw anything unusual. Actually, our section was

  pretty much cleared out. We had a secretarial pool meeting at onethirty, so

  most of us-"

  "Who called that meeting, Miss Andrews?"

  "This month's chairman-tben, of course, he said he didn7t, so we sat around

  drinking coffee."

  "Didn't you get a memo about the meeting?"

  "No, the word was just passed around that morning. It frequently is; that's

  'standard."

  "Thank you very much. You've been most helpful."

  "Ies all such a waste, Mr. Cross. Such a goddamned terrible waste."

  "I know. Good-bye." Havelock bung up and spoke, his eyes still on the

  phone. "Our man is good," he said. "Invisible paint."

  "She couldn't tell you anything?"

  "Yes, she did. Bradford listened to me. He went outside to a booth and

  called for whatever it was be wanted. The number we need won't be found

  charged to his office phone; it's among a couple of million lost in the

  underground trunk lines."

  "Nothing else?"

  . Maybe something." Michael looked over at Jenna, a frown on his face, his

  eyes clouded. "See if you can find a copy of yesterday's paper around here,

  will you? I want to

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  know the name of every senior offleial at State who was interviewed on the

  morning television programs. It's crazy. The last thing on Bradford's mind

  was television."

  jenna found the newspaper. No one from the Department of State had been

  on television that morning.

  31

  If Talbot County, Maryland, had an esteemed physician in Dr. Matthew

  Randolph, it also had an extremely unpleasant man. Born to Eastern Shore

  money, raised in the tradition of privilege, which included the finest

  schools and clubs, and possessing what amounted to unlimited funds, he

  nevertheless abused everyone and everything within these rarefied circles in

  the pursuit of medicine.

  When he was thirty, having graduated magna cum laude from Johns Hopkins and

  completed pathological and surgical r!sidencies at Massachusetts General

  and New York, be decided he could not function at his talented best within

  the stultifying, politicized confines of a normal hospital. The answer for

  him was simple: he virtually extorted monies from the legions of the

  Chesapeake privileged, threw in an initial two million dollars himself and

  opened his own fifty-bed medical center.

  It was run his way, which amounted to a none too benevolent dictatorship.

  There was no exclusivity with regard to admission, but there was a

  rule-of-thiLunb policy: the rich were soaked outrageously for services

  rendered them, and the poor given financial consideration only after

  enduring the ignominy of disclosing overwhelming proof of poverty and

  listening to a lecture on the sin of indolence. Rich and poor alike,

  however, continued in growing numbers to put up with these

  516

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  insults, for over the years the Randolph Medical Center had established a

  reputation that was second to none. Its laboratory equipment was the finest

  money could buy; its generously paid staff physicians were the brightest

  graduates from the best schools and toughest residencies; the visiting

  surgical and pathological specialists were flown in from all over the globe,

  and the talents of the overpaid technicians and nursing corps were far in

  excess of normal hospital standards. In essence, treatment at Randolph was

  both medically superb and personally gratifying. The only way it might be

  improved upon, some said, would be to remove the abrasive personality of the

  sixty-eight-year-old Matthew Randolph. However, others pointed out that one

  way to cripple a smoothly running craft in rough waters was to tear out the

  throttle because the engine pitch was grating to the ears. And in Randolph's

  case, short of his own death-which seemed unlikely for several

  centuries-physically tearing him out was the only way to remove him.

  Besides, who else could look down at a nephew of Emile du Pont just before

  an operation and ask, "How much is your life worth to you?"

  In the du Pont case, it was a million-dollar-plus tie-in computer with four

  of the nation's leading research centers.

  Havelock learned these details from CIA files as be researched the death of

  a black-operations officer named Steven MacKenzie, the "engineer" of Costa

  Brava. In Cagnessur-Mer, Henri Salanne bad by implication questioned the

  veracity of the doctor who signed MacKenzie's death certificate. Michael in

  his own mind had gone further; he had considered altered laboratory

  reports, autopsy findings not consistent with the state of the corpse

  and-after the President had mentioned X-rays-the obvious switching of

  photographic plates. However, in light of the information on Randolph and

  his Medical Center, it was difficult to credit these possibilities.

  Everything connected to and with the official cause of death was processed

  through Randolph's personal on-site attendance and his own laboratories.

  The abrasive doctor might well be dictatorial, petulant, most definitely

  opinionated and unpleasant, but if ever there was a person who deserved to

  be called a man of integrity, it was Matthew Randolph. His Medical Center,

  too, was irreproachable. All things considered--aU things-there was no

  reason on earth for either to be otherwise.

  518 Roi3ErtT LuDLum

  And for Havelock, that was the flaw. It was simply too symmetrical. Pieces

  rarely, if ever, fell into place-even negatively-so precisely. There were

  always eaves to explore that might lead to hidden pools-whether they did or

  not was irrevelant, the eaves were there. Here, there were none.

  The first indication Michael had that there might be substance to his

  doubts was the fact that Matthew Randolph did not return his first call. In

  every other instance, including calls to eight senior officers of the

  Pentagon's Nuclear Contingency Committees, Bradford's secretary, CIA and

  NSC personnel, the phone in Fairfax bad rung within minutes after he placed

  the contact call. One did not dismiss lightly a request to reach a

  presidential aide at the White House.

  Dr. Matthew Randolph apparently felt no such compulsion. And so Havelock

  bad phoned a second time, only to be told: "The doctor is extremely busy

  today. He said to say be'll get back to you, Mr. Cross, when be has the

  free time."

  "Did you explain that I'm to be reached at the White House?"

  "Yes, sir." The secretary bad paused, embarrassment in her brief silence.

  "He said to tell you the Center's paint
ed white, too," she added in a very

  soft voice. "He said that, Mr. Cross, I diddt."

  "Then tell Genghis Khan for me that III either bear from him within the

  hour or be may find the sheriff of Talbot County escorting him to the

  D.C.-Maryland border, where a White House detail will pick hina up and

  bring him down here."

  Matthew Randolph returned the call, in fifty-eight minutes.

  "Who the hell do you think you are, Cross?"

  "An extremely overworked nonentity, Dr. Randolph."

  "You threatened mel I dodt like threats whether they come from the White

  House or a blue house or an outhousel I trust you get my meaning."

  "III convey your feelings to the President."

  "Do that. He's not the worst, but I could think of better.0

  "You might even get along."

  "I doubt it. Sincere politicians bore me. Sincerity and politics are

  diametrically opposed. What do you want? If it's any kind of endorsement,

  you can start with a healthy govemmeat research grant."

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  "I have an idea President Berquist would entertain that idea only if you

  openly opposed him."

  Randolph paused. "Not bad," he said. "What do you want? We're busy here."

  I want to ask you several questions about a man-a dead man-named Steven

  MacKenzie."

  Again the doctor paused, but it was a different silence. And when he

  resumed speaking, it was in a different tone. Previously his hostility had

  been genuine; now it was forced.

  "Damn it, how many times do we have to go over that? MacKenzie died of

  stroke-a massive aortal hemorrhage, an aneurysn-4 to be precise. I turned

  over the pathology report and conferred with your spook doctors till hell

  froze over. 7beYve got it all.-

  "Spook doctors?"

  'Mey sure as hell wereift from Mary-General or Baltimore's Mother of Mercy,

  I can tell you. Nor did they claim to be." Randolph paused again; Michael

  did not fin the moment. He was listening with a trained ear, silences and

  audible breathing being a part of the abstract tonal picture he was trying

  to define. The doctor continued, his phrases too rushed, the edge of his

  voice too sharp; his previous confidence was waning, replaced by volume

  alone. "You want any information on MacKenzie, you get it from them. We all